On Training Methods of Short Term Memory in Consecutive Interpreting 交替传译中短时记忆的训练方法
Name: Li, Lingling
Cla: 2007English Education Cla 2 January 4, 2010
目录
ABSTRACT .....................................................................................................3 1.Introduction ..................................................................................................5 2.Brief Introduction of Interpreting .............................................................5 2.1 Background information ......................................................................5 2.2 Interpreting ...........................................................................................6 3.Memory System ..........................................................................................8 3.1 Short term memory ..............................................................................8 3.2 Short term and long term memory .......................................................9 3.3 The Effort Eodels by Daniel Gile ......................................................10 4.Characters of short term memory ..............................................................12 4.1 Input of information ...........................................................................12 4.2 Capacity .............................................................................................12 4.3 Modality .............................................................................................12 4.4 Information Lo ................................................................................13 4.5 Retrieval .............................................................................................13 5.Memory Training .......................................................................................14 5.1 Visualizing materials: ........................................................................15 5.2 Retelling in the Source Language ......................................................15 5.3Mnemonic to Memory ........................................................................16 5.4 Grouping information together ..........................................................17 5.5 Aociation .........................................................................................17 6.Conclusion .................................................................................................18 Bibliography ..................................................................错误！未定义书签。
ABSTRACT Interpreting is important and popular nowadays owing to its communicative function in fields of politics, economy, culture, education and so on.However, it’s not easy to be a qualified interpreter because the training methods are not systematically completed.This thesis is mainly dealing with the methods of training short-term memory in consecutive interpreting (CI).According to Effort Model from Daniel Gile, the short term memory is an eential part in the proce of interpreting.In order to be a qualified interpreter, student interpreters need large quantity of practice and skills.Considering of this, the author makes some research about the training of short term memory and hopes this training can help student interpreters improve short term memory.Key words: consecutive interpreting (CI); short term memory; Effort Model; training methods
口译因其在政治、经济、文化、教育等方面有着重要的交际功能，因此在当今社会越来越显示出其重要性并且逐渐受到人们的重视。然而，由于目前口译训练方法仍然不够系统和完整，因此想成为一名合格的口译人员实属不易。本论文主要介绍了交替传译中短时记忆的训练方法。根据Daniel Gile 的精力分配模式，短时记忆在口译过程中起到举足轻重的地位。 为了成为一名合格的译员，训练者需要进行大量的练习并且掌握口译技巧。考虑到这个问题，笔者通过搜集整理和自己的亲身经历总结了短时记忆 的训练方法，希望能够帮助训练者提高短时记忆。
1.Introduction There are three kinds of memory system and short term memory is the eential part in interpreting, so in this paper the author mainly does research about the short term memory.Chapter 1 is an introduction about planning of this paper.In Chapter 2, it shows a general introduction about interpreting and its current situation in China.This helps us to get a more clear understanding about advantages and disadvantages of CI in order to find the weaknees.According to the analysis in Chapter 2, the author believes that the memory training is a big obstacle encountered by the student interpreters.Considering of this, the author decides to start with the memory system, so in Chapter 3, it mainly shows three types of memory systems as well as how they work and what functions they have and the illustration is focused on the concrete connections between the short term memory and CI.In Chapter 4, the author shows the characters of short term memory and the problems interpreters meet due to the characters.In Chapter 5, according to all above and research, the author finds some methods dealing with the problems.Finally is the conclusion and some suggestions in future research.2.Brief Introduction of Interpreting 2.1 Background information Interpreting becomes a very popular job nowadays due to the world globalization in fields of economy, politics, culture and s on.With the rising position of China, especially hosting of 2008 Olympic Games and 2010 Shanghai World Expo as well as entering WTO, China plays more and more important role in the world, so international communication become more frequently.This brings large requirement of interpreting which is considered responsive and practical, both quality and quantity.However, interpreting industry is facing serious situation: lacking of systematical training methods and high quantity of teachers.2.2 Definition of Interpreting Interpreting is the facilitating of oral or sign-language communication, either simultaneously or consecutively, between users of different languages.The proce is described by both the words interpreting and interpretation.Profeional Interpreting can be mainly claified into simultaneous interpreting and consecutive interpreting in terms of the way of interpreting.In consecutive interpreting (CI), the interpreter speaks after the source-language speaker has finished speaking.The speech is divided into segments, and the interpreter sits or stands beside the source-language speaker, listening and taking notes as the speaker progrees through the meage.When the speaker pauses or finishes speaking, the interpreter then renders a portion of the meage or the entire meage in the target language.A qualified interpreter is required to cover various fields of knowledge and poees good psychological quality as well as a strong memory.Due to this requirement, interpreting is a challengeable work.2.3 Quality of a good interpreter 2.3.1 Profound knowledge As a good interpreter, the basic quality is to master the source language and target language.Moreover, an interpreter should have a good knowledge of the culture of both countries, such as the customs, the history, the humorous expreions as well as the current event and popular tendency.For example, when interpreter heard “Baudelaire’s translation of Poe may be \"better\" poems than those Poe wrote; but those who read them have read Baudelaire\'s version of Poe; not Poe.” In this sentence, there are two names Baudelaire and Poe.Baudelaire is a French writer, who is famous for translating the works by American writer Edgar Allan Poe and is acknowledged better than the original works.If the interpreter knows this, it is not difficult to translate it as波德来尔所译的爱伦坡的诗，也许比爱伦坡自己所写的更好；但读那些诗的人只是读了波德来尔所译的爱伦坡；而不是真正的爱伦坡.Therefore, a good interpreter should self enriching greatly and improving continuously.2.3.1 Strong memory Owing to the special characteristics of interpreting, interpreter should have a strong memory.On the one hand, interpreter has to master a large amount of vocabulary and idioms, such as画蛇添足 to paint the lily；用小虾钓大鱼 to throw a sprat to catch a whale.Besides, for some Chinese idioms, interpreters should remember the original story, such as东施效颦Tung Shih imitates Hsi Shih.Hsi Shih was a famous beauty in the ancient kindgdom of Yueh.Tung Shih was an ugly girl who tried to imitate her ways.The ugly imitates the beautiful in such a distorted way that the ugline of the ugly becomes even worse.On the other hand, interpreters should have a good memory to expre the meaning speakers said.Owing to the limited time, note-taking can only write down the main point and the whole meaning can only be expreed though the strong memory.
3.Memory System 3.1 Short term memory Short-term memory (or \"primary\" or \"active memory\") is the capacity for holding a small amount of information in mind in an active, readily available state for a short period of time.The duration of short-term memory (when rehearsal or active maintenance is prevented) is believed to be in the order of seconds.In an early and highly influential article, The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two, the psychologist George Miller suggested that human short-term memory has a forward memory span of approximately seven items plus or minus two and that was well known at the time.
David A.Sousa, in his book ,how the brain works refers to the term short term memory as all of the early steps of temporary memory leads to long term memory.According to his idea, short term memory can be divided into sensory memory and working memory.Sensory memory is the very first step for the source information coming into one’s brain with the shortest duration and can hold a certain amount of information, but these information can only lasts 0.25-2 seconds and disappears rapidly.Working memory refers to information stored for further proceing.Working memory boasts both storage and proceing functions.The two functions are interrelated with each other.When encountered with new or difficult tasks, then more proceing capacity is required, thus leaving le capacity for storage function (David W.Carroll, 2000.49).During the researching, the authors doubts that decay causes forgetting from short-term memory often offer as an alternative some form of interference: When several elements (such as digits, words, or pictures) are held in short term memory simultaneously, their representations compete with each other for recall, or degrade each other.Thereby, new content gradually pushes out older content, unle the older content is actively protected against interference by rehearsal or by directing attention to it.3.2 Short term and long term memory Psychological studies of human memory make a distinction between short term memory and long term memory.The idea of short term memory simply means that you are retaining information for a short period of time without creating the neural mechanisms for later recall.Long-Term Memory occurs when you have created neural pathways for storing ideas and information which can then be recalled weeks, months, or even years later.To create these pathways, you must make a deliberate attempt to encode the information in the way you intend to recall it later.Long-term memory is a learning proce.And it is eentially an important part of the interpreter\'s acquisition of knowledge, because information stored in long term memory may last for minutes to weeks, months, or even an entire life.The duration of short term memory is very short.It is up to 30 seconds.Peterson (1959) found it to be 6 - 12 seconds, while Atkinson and Schifrin (1968) and Herb (1949) state it is 30 seconds.Memory in CI only lasts for a short time.Once the interpreting aignment is over, the interpreter moves on to another one, often with different context, subject and speakers.Therefore, the memory skills which need to be imparted to trainee interpreters are short term memory skills.Another difference is that short term memory is proceed largely in terms of speech sounds, while long term memory depends mostly on meaning.In the early 1960s, Conrad, in connection with work for the British Post Office, conducted experiments on memory for letter codes.Conrad’s subjects were presented visually with sequences of unrelated consonants and were required to write them down immediately afterwards.He noticed that the short term memory errors made were not random, but similar in the sound to the correct item.Subjects mistakenly remember the words as words with similar pronunciation more than similar spelling.This indicates that the material is more easily remembered in terms of their sound rather than their visual appearance.Since the interpreters deal with the vocal materials, short term memory can do well to training.3.3 The Effort Eodels by Daniel Gile (1)C = KL + ELK + A Comprehension =Knowledge for language+ Extra-linguistic Language + Analysis (2)CI =L + N + M + C Consecutive Interpreting =Listening Analysis+ Note-taking+ Short-term Memory+ Coordination In consecutive interpretation, the interpreter takes notes while the speaker speaks, then delivers speech to the listener in the target language according to his or her memory and notes.Consecutive interpretation is performed in two phases, the listening and note-taking phase, and the speech production phase.(3) CI = Rem + Read + P Consecutive Interpreting=Remembering+ Note-reading+ Speech Production
In phase two, high capacity in taking notes is beneficial to the Rem component, since good note-taking reduces the capacity requirements for Rem.Besides, mastering a certain amount of linguistic and extra-linguistic knowledge will lead to succeful transferring form source language to target language.Since short term memory plays an important role in CI, the author decides to take a further step on short term memory.4.Characters of short term memory 4.1 Input of information It is generally held that information enters the short term memory as a result of applying attention to the stimulus, which is about a quarter of a second according to the findings of both Sperling(1960) and Crowden(1982).However, McKay\'s (1973, in Radford and Govier, 1991: 382) findings do not fully support this, aerting that unattended information may enter the short term memory.4.2 Capacity As mentioned in the previous section, the capacity of short term memory is limited and small.Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) propose that it is seven items of information (give or take two).Miller (1956) says it is seven \"chunks.\" Another poibility may be that the limiting factor is not the short term memory\'s storage capacity, but its proceing capacity (Gro: 1990:55).4.3 Modality To store information in short term memory, it must be encoded, and there is a variety of poibilities as to how this operates.There are three main poibilities in short term memory: (1) Acoustic (Phonemic) coding is rehearsing through sub-vocal sounds (Conrad, 1964 and Baddeley: 1966).(2) Visual coding is, as implied, storing information as pictures rather than sounds.This applies especially to nonverbal items, particularly if they are difficult to describe using words.In very rare cases some people may have a \"photographic memory,\" but for the vast majority, the visual code is much le effective than this (Posner and Keele: 1967).(3) Semantic coding is applying meaning to information, relating it to something abstract (Baddeley: 1990, Goodhead: 1999) 4.4 Information Lo There are three main theories as to why we forget from our short term memory: (1) Displacement—existing information is replaced by newly received information when the storage capacity is full (Waugh and Norman: 1965) (2) Decay—information decays over time (Baddeley, Thompson and Buchanan, 1975).(3) Interference—other information present in the storage at the same time distorts the original information (Keppel and Underwood: 1962).4.5 Retrieval There are modes of retrieval of information from short term memory: (1) Serial search—items in short term memory are examined one at a time until the desired information is retrieved (Sternberg: 1966).(2) Activation—dependence on activation of the particular item reaching a critical point 5.Memory Training The purpose of short term memory training in CI is to achieve a better understanding of the source language, which will lead to adequate interpreting.As Lin Yuru et al.put it, \"Memory in consecutive interpreting consists of nothing more than understanding the meaning, which is conveyed by the words\" (Lin et al., 1999:9).Understanding is the first step in succeful interpreting; therefore, memory training is to be provided in the early stage of interpreter training.Memory functions differently in consecutive and simultaneous interpreting because the duration of memory is longer in CI than in SI.There are different methods of training short term memory for CI and SI respectively.Interpreting starts with the encoding of the information from the original speaker.According to Gile\'s Effort Model, interpreting is short term memory-centered activity; the proce of interpreting could be re-postulated into: Encoding of information from the Source Language + Storing Information + Retrieval of Information + Decoding Information into the Target language In Consecutive Interpreting, there is probably up to 15 minutes (depending on the speaker\'s segments) for the interpreter to encode and then store the information.This is the first phase of Gile\'s Effort Model for CI.In the second phase of Gile\'s Model, the interpreter starts to retrieve information and decode it into the target language.According to the previous description, there are three main poibilities of storing information in short term memory: (1) Acoustic Coding; (2) Visual Coding and (3) Semantic Coding.Visual coding may be used by interpreters in conference situations with multimedia.Notes in interpreting are to aist in such visual coding of information.But in most interpreting contexts, interpreters will depend on acoustic and semantic coding.Therefore, exercises should be designed for this purpose.The following methods are recommended: 5.1 Visualizing materials: Visualizing means that to visualize what the speaker is speaking, for instance, to form a scene to strengthen the short term memory of the interpreter.A British psychologist named Frederic C.Bartlett(1998:279) regarded memory as the reconstruction of an image.The conclusion of the study showed that the capacity of memory of pictures viewed and images is easier to remember than vocabulary and expreions This kind of exercise aims to promote the ability of an interpreter to actualize and visualize the information he listened, which is designed to sensibility of human’s brain to image of language resources.5.2 Retelling in the Source Language The instructor either reads or plays a recording of a text of about 200 words for the trainees to retell in the same language.The trainees should not be allowed to take any notes.In the first instance, trainees should be encouraged to retell the text in the same words of the original to the largest poible extent.The following tactics should be used by the trainees after a certain time of training on retelling: Categorization: Grouping items of the same properties; Generalization: Drawing general conclusions from particular examples or meage from the provided text; Comparison: Noticing the differences and similarities between different things, facts and events; Description: Describing a scene, a shape, or size of an object, etc.Trainees are encouraged to describe, summarize, and abstract the original to a large extent in their own words in exercises.5.3 Mnemonic to Memory Mnemonic is a device, such as a formula or rhyme, used as an aid in remembering.Mnemonics are methods for remembering information that is otherwise quite difficult to recall.A very simple example of a mnemonic is the \'30 days hath September\' rhyme.The basic principle of Mnemonics is to use as many of the best functions of the human brain as poible to encode information.The human brain has evolved to encode and interpret complex stimuli—images, color, structure, sounds, smells, tastes, touch, spatial awarene, emotion, and language—using them to make sophisticated interpretations of the environment.Human memory is made up of all these features.Typically, however, information presented to be remembered is from one source—normally words on a page.While reading words on a page reflects one of the most important aspects of human evolution, it is only one of the many skills and resources available to the human mind.Mnemonics seek to use all of these resources.By encoding language and numbers in sophisticated, striking images which flow into other strong images, we can accurately and reliably encode both information and the structure of information to be easily recalled later (Manktelow:2003).5.4 Grouping information together Random lists of things (a shopping list, for example) can be especially difficult to remember.To make it easier, try categorizing the individual things from the list.If a person can remember that, among other things, he wanted to buy four different kinds of vegetables, he’ll find it easier to remember all four.Another example: probably 17761812184818651898 won\'t be easily remembered, but try putting a space after every fourth number.Now those numbers are years, and they can be easily remembered by picking key events from each year (e.g., Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Mexican-American War, Civil War, and Spanish-American War).5.5 Aociation
The reason that most of people can\'t remember their friend\'s phone number is because 535-3473 just a string of numbers that have no obvious connection to their friend.In order to use one’s memory efficiently, the best way is to actively create an aociation for things one is trying to remember.For example, write out a phone number: five three five three four seven three.Now try to create a clever phrase that starts with the first letter of those words: fairy tales feel true for some time.Now that phone number can be much more easily remembered.
Alternatively, one could create a story that involves 5 characters buying 3 things and doing 5 more things with them by using imagination.The point is that one wants to connect the phone number to something else.6.Conclusion Keeping a good short term memory in consecutive interpreting is a significant aspect, which the train interpreters need to grasp.From the above analysis, we can conclude that short term memory skills in consecutive interpreting could be acquired by effectively designed training methods.With a well-\'trained\' short-term memory, interpreters are actually equipped with an effective tool for the encoding and decoding information.Even though the author has found and summarized some training methods, these methods are not suitable for every trainee.In the future research, the author believes that every student interpreter needs to explore practical training methods for themselves, which can lead a better result for their future career and be transformed into theories.
